WFI suspension will not be lifted till elections are held, says chief of world wrestling body

Mumbai: The United World Wrestling has not set any deadline but will end the suspension of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) conducts free and fair elections and install a democratically elected managing committee, the chief of the global body said on Monday.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the 141st IOC Session here, Nenad Lalovic, president of the United World Wrestling (UWW) said the suspension will be lifted as soon as the Indian authorities manage to resolve the legal issues and put in place a democratically elected body and inform the names to the global body.

“They will have to resolve the legal issues and conduct elections and put in place a democratically elected body. We are not in favour of the suspension continuing for long,” he said, making it clear no special concessions will be given to the WFI considering that the delay in elections is now because the case has reached the Supreme Court.

Lalovic said as per his understanding the WFI case will come up for the next hearing in the Supreme Court in November and once the ad-hoc committee appointed by the ministry gets the go-ahead, elections could be conducted after a month, which means the suspension will continue till the end the year at least.

He said the reason the UWW suspended WFI was because of a lack of governance.

Lalovic said the UWW was closely monitoring the protest by prominent wrestlers against the former president of WFI, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for alleged sexual harassment of minor female wrestlers.

He said his sport had not encountered such allegations in the past from anywhere in the world and the WFI incident has triggered its mechanism for safeguarding athletes. He said they have a robust mechanism for safeguarding wrestlers and had advised all their members to be vigilant on this front.

–IANS